


theatre and tarnish // solangelo

by poptartsofthedarkside



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Actor!Nico, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Medium Length, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace Fluff, Slow Burn, Stage Manager!Will, Theatre, high school theatre, hopefully, i'm just deprived for solangelo content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28694040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poptartsofthedarkside/pseuds/poptartsofthedarkside
Summary: in which nico and will eventually become two very gay, in love theatre kids.eventually.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	theatre and tarnish // solangelo

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was a half-baked idea my friend ash and i came up with and decided to make into reality.
> 
> enjoy.

Nico was getting impatient.

Sure, with his ADHD, he was always impatient, but this was different.

He’d auditioned for his high school’s production of Spring Awakening over a week ago, and the cast list still hadn’t been posted.

“Stop worrying,” his friend Piper said as he looked at the corkboard in front of the auditorium for the fiftieth time that day, “you’re literally one of two people to audition for Moritz.”

Easy for her to say. There’s no way Mr. D would cast anyone except her for Wendla.

“Yeah, Nico, chill.” Percy said. He hadn’t even auditioned for a role, how could he know?

Nico’s feet were planted in front of the auditorium. It was lunch anyway, so he wouldn’t be missing any classes, and he’d much rather be here instead of the literal hell that was the cafeteria. Big social gatherings were not his thing.

He shouldn’t even have auditioned. What was he thinking? A play in front of probably the entire school? This was all Piper’s fault.

“Go ahead!” she’d said, “audition! What’s the worst that could happen?”

This. This was the worst that could happen. Standing in front of an empty corkboard, stomach churning with anticipation.

Maybe Mr. D would be in there. He could just say that he wasn’t going to be in the musical, the other guy could play Moritz. Yeah, that would be for the best.

He stepped inside and breathed. Mr. D wouldn’t mind, right? Besides, it’s not like he sang like an angel of something. No one would miss him.

The auditorium wasn’t too big; Goode High was one of those high schools that paid no heed to the arts and wasted all of their money on their surplus sports teams. The large read curtains were drawn, and he could just barely see the light and sound booth on the opposite side of the wooden stage.

If only he could re-do his audition. And by redo, he meant not do it at all.

Mr. D wasn’t here. So much for that.

He stepped onto the stage. This was where he stood, at the first audition, then at callbacks.

The only reason he’d auditioned for Spring Awakening, other than Piper bashing his head out about it, was because it was Bianca’s favorite.

Bianca would sing him one song, Whispering, to him, before going to bed. Her soft voice got sadder and sadder up until the days she’d died. Nico had the lyrics committed to memory.

The first few months after, he’d sing the song to himself. Every day. It was comforting, like he could pretend Bianca was still here with him.

He didn’t really know why, but he started to sing.

_Whispering  
Hear the ghost in the moonlight  
Sorrow doing a new dance  
Through their bones, through their skin _

He stepped down from the stage and sighed. What’s the worst that could happen?

~~~

Will was getting impatient.

He was waiting for an email from Mr. D saying that he would be stage manager of the Goode High production of Spring Awakening.

It was a voluntary thing, but Will wanted to be stage manager more than most. He loved theatre, and his mom was a singer. Will could almost imagine her proud face when he got the email. If he got the email.

First thing in the morning, he checked his phone. No email.

He got on the bus and was greeted by Lou Ellen. “Did you get the email?”

“Nope.” Will sat down next to her.

“Auditions were last week,” she tapped her chin. “Shouldn’t you have gotten it by now?”

“Maybe Mr. D picked someone else to be stage manager.”

“Pshh. No way. If you don’t become stage manager, I will literally tell everyone you’re straight.”

Will grinned. “Shut up.” He checked his phone again.

He was feeling great the rest of the day, other than the nagging feeling that the godforsaken email hadn’t come yet. There was a surprise quiz in biology, which he’d aced, thanks to all the late night studying he’d done.

While going to the cafeteria, he passed by the auditorium. Even the cast list hadn’t been posted yet. Will wondered if the actors were just as frustrated as him.

Maybe he’d go in, to check if Mr. D was in there. If he wasn’t in a drunken stupor.

Will decided to take the stage door instead of the main entrance. Mr. D was more likely to be backstage.

He saw the curtain ropes, the stage manager desk and the lighting booth, all the way up there facing the stage. He was looking for Mr. D everywhere, in the folds of the red curtains, underneath the stage in the pit, and in the dressing and quick change rooms, when he heard a voice, singing.

_Whispering_   
_Hear the ghost in the moonlight_   
_Sorrow doing a new dance_   
_Through their bones, through their skin_

Who was that? Will recognized it, a song from Spring Awakening. The voice was definitely male, he sang it a few octaves lower than the original, and he must have been on stage, since Will scoured everywhere else looking for his teacher. He sounded beautiful, Will thought.

He slowly approached the stage, like he was cornering a wounded animal. He wasn’t sure why, really, the voice was distinctly human, but the boy sang it with so much pain Will couldn’t be sure if he was hurt or not.

There was no one on stage. Will wondered if maybe the singer was here for the same reason as him.

~~~

Nico loved his friends, but they were too much sometimes.

At their lunch table, they talked loudly, getting some nasty glances from some stressed-looking seniors hunched over textbooks.

“-and then, she said, ‘I didn’t do anything!’” Leo exclaimed from the other side of the lunch table. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes narrating a fraudulent story from his math class.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, which was fitting, since most of Leo’s narratives we’re pretty much a hundred percent false. “The audacity,” she said sarcastically.

“Oh my god, Annabeth, you weren’t there.” Leo said, without any heat, and then went back to devouring his tofu enchiladas.

Piper wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I can’t believe you didn’t audition for the play, Leo. You would have been a perfect stage personality.”

  
“Yeah, perfectly annoying,” Percy said, which got a few laughs out of everyone.

Leo ran a hand through his curly brown hair. “As fun as being perfectly annoying sounds, I would never audition for the play. For all I know, theatre’s probably a cult.”

Piper made her voice low and gravelly. “Yes, join the theatre cult, when we inaugurate people with stage fog and Phantom of the Opera.”

Nico smiled.

Jason looked up. “Did the cast list get posted yet?”

“Not you too! Nico’s been pestering me about it since first period,” Piper groaned.

“I have not.” Nico said, but inside he was asking the same question.

Jason had auditioned for Melchior, the lead male. Jason could sing, but his voice was more authoritative than anything. When Nico thought about it, he really would be perfect for the role. Besides, Piper tried out for Wendla, and those two were so over-the-moon for each other, their chemistry would be pretty much unmatched.

As Nico packed up his lunch and headed to history class, he saw Mr. D in front of the corkboard.

Mr. D stepped away fron the board, regarded it for a second, and then left, leaving an alcohol-smelling trail behind him.

Nico rushed towards the board, almost slipping.

_Spring Awakening Cast List:_

_Leads_   
_Melchoir Gabor - Jason Grace_   
_Wendla Bergmann - Piper McLean_

_Supporting_   
_Ilse Neumann - Annabeth Chase_   
_Martha Bessell - Silena Beauregard_   
_Anna - Drew Tanaka_   
_Thea - Kayla Knowles_

_Moritz Steifel - Nico di Angelo_

Nico’s heartbeat almost stopped. He got the role. _He got the role._

He tried to calm himself down. Everyone at school knew him as the emo kid who lost his sister in a car accident. He was fine with that reputation, he couldn’t be seen jumping and screaming over a cast list.

  
But as he walked in (late) to his history class, he couldn’t help thinking how excited he was.

~~~

Will loved his mom, but she was too much sometimes.

When they had moved to New York from Austin, all of these Yankees were, well, surprised by her so-called ‘southern hospitality’.

Will tried to explain that people were meaner, grittier here than they were in the south, but Naomi Solace would have none of it.

As soon as Will stepped in, his mom showered him with questions.

“William, sweets, how was your day?”

  
“Oh, you look so tired, did you stay up studying again?”

  
“Sit down, have some casserole.”

Will ate silently as his mom talked about her day at the new gig she got. It was jazz, Will’s favorite genre of music (other than musicals, of course).

“The saxophonist started playing this amazing improvised solo- oh, go on, eat some more- and the crowd went wild. Wild, I tell you” his mom said, while gesturing how wild the

Will smiled and shoved down more casserole. He had a disgusting amount of homework to get to. Not to mention that email.

“Oh, Will, I completely forgot! Did you get that email yet?”

“Not yet, Mom.”

Will’s mom walked over and ruffled Will’s blond hair. “Aw, shucks. What play are y’all doing again? Spring Ephiphany?”

“Spring Awakening, Mom,” Will replied.

Naomi ruffled his hair again. “Listen, Will, I got back-to-back gigs this whole week. I’ll be home late. Keep yourself safe, ‘kay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

Will went up to his room and sighed. Honestly, he always got whiplash from the utter nerdiness of his bedroom. He really needed to clean out all of the Star Wars memorabilia he had. He didn’t even like Star Wars that much anymore.

He recalled the mysterious boy he’d heard in the auditorium. He probably would have auditioned, right? Maybe then Will could put a face to the voice during the first rehearsal. If he got stage manager. No, when.  
It had been a long day.

Will sat down and started doing his homework. Biology, for sure he’d do that first. Then math. Then probably Spanish.

Will barely noticed how tired he was. After a few pages of bio, he felt himself drift off.

Will woke up with a jolt. His biology textbook had a few drops of drool on it, he wiped them away quickly.

He rubbed his face and checked the time on his phone. 7:46. God, he’d underestimated how exhausted he was.

“Mom!” Will called, but he didn’t get a reply. She must’ve still been out.

Will saw another notification on his phone: a new email from. . .Mr. D!

He opened it quickly. His eyes skimmed over a few lines, typo-ridden, and finally got to the only sentence that he wanted to see.

_Congratulations! You are the stage manager of Goode High’s production of Spring Awakening._

Elated would be an understatement to how he felt.

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to ash (@identitycrisis-electricboogaloo on tumblr, go send her some love uwu) for beta-reading this monstrosity. 
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated!!


End file.
